Afghanistan War Commission Convened its First Public Hearing Last Week

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Expecting too much from the Afghanistan War Commission might lead to disappointment. Last week, the bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission convened for its first public hearing since its establishment in 2021. This session included testimonies from prominent figures in foreign policy, who discussed the origins of the conflict and the importance of re-examining it. This effort is grounded in George Santayana's famous aphorism: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The underlying logic is that by reviewing the West's 20-year involvement in Afghanistan, we can identify our mistakes and avoid repeating them in the future.

 

Congress established the commission with two main objectives. First, it aims to meticulously examine the events with the benefit of hindsight. Second, and more importantly, it seeks "to develop a series of lessons learned and recommendations for the way forward that will inform future decisions by Congress and policymakers throughout the United States Government."

 

The commission consists of 16 commissioners, evenly split between appointees from the Democratic and Republican parties. Its co-chairs are Shamila N. Chaudary, a foreign policy academic with experience in the State Department and the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, and Colin Jackson, a Department of Defense official who served in Afghanistan under President Donald Trump.

 

This process of historical analysis and learning is expected to take four years. To put this timeline in perspective, an infantry officer deployed to Afghanistan at the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 could potentially be a general by the time the commission publishes its findings. NATO ended combat operations and transferred responsibility to Afghan national security forces a decade ago, at the end of 2014, and U.S. combat forces left the country nearly three years ago.

 

A comparable model for this commission is the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, commonly known as the 9/11 Commission. This commission was created to provide "a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks." However, the 9/11 Commission operated on a significantly faster timeline. It was established only 13 months after the attacks and reported in July 2004, less than three years after 9/11. Its 585-page report was comprehensive yet manageable, and it addressed many key figures who were still in office at the time, including President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, and the Director of the FBI. The Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, had only stepped down weeks before the report's release.

 

A more relevant comparison might be found in the United Kingdom's experience. Although Lord Butler of Brockwell, a former head of the civil service, conducted a brief review of the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in early 2004, it was widely regarded as an establishment whitewash. In 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown initiated a full public inquiry into every aspect of the UK's involvement in Iraq from 2001 to 2009. Chaired by Sir John Chilcot, a former civil servant with extensive experience in intelligence and security, the Iraq Inquiry conducted hearings for 18 months and published its conclusions in 2016, seven years after it was established.

 

The report was exhaustive, comprising 12 volumes and an executive summary totaling 2.6 million words, and it was extensively and harshly critical of British foreign policy. "The government failed to achieve its stated objectives," it concluded, "the consequences of the invasion were underestimated," and "planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate."

 

These findings were widely reported at the time, and Prime Minister David Cameron made a statement to the House of Commons upon the report's publication. However, the repercussions were muted. Sir Tony Blair had stepped down as prime minister nine years earlier; his first foreign secretary, Robin Cook, had passed away, and his second, Jack Straw, was no longer in Parliament. Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, had moved into the private sector, and the defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, had become a largely forgotten figure. In blunt terms, politics had moved on.

 

If a lesson was learned by the institutions of government, it was that major land commitments in the Middle East were financially and reputationally ruinous. British combat troops had left Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan in 2015. Any hope for a reckoning for the "guilty men" was sustained only if one believed that Sir Tony Blair was now in public disgrace and penury, and Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell, Blair's director of communications, were not respected consultants and broadcasters.

 

The Afghanistan War Commission may eventually produce an impeccable, insightful, and indispensable analysis of the United States' deployment in the region when it reports towards the end of the 2020s. There may be some lessons that foreign policy experts absorb and implement. However, based on the UK's experience with the Iraq Inquiry, it is advisable to manage expectations if anyone thinks Washington's global stance will change radically or that individuals will be held accountable. It is simply too long ago.

 

Credit: Hill 2024-07-30

 

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[ThaiFelix]

11 hours ago, Social Media said:

George Santayana's famous aphorism: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

With the inclusion of the Vietnam War its got to be the joke line of the century surely?

 

11 hours ago, Social Media said:

the bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission convened for its first public hearing since its establishment in 2021.

Is this the group responsible for converting the "we got our arses kicked again" to a "withdrawal with honour" like we saw with Vietnam?